Miller Press Baseball Cards - any knowledgeable collectors here?
 

My friend recently mentioned that he had acquired several lots of Miller Press cards. I had never heard of them. Found them on the Google, but not alot of background info or history/values.

Anyone here familiar with them and able to give me a quick education on the subject?

Thanks ahead of time.

If I recall, these are basically just homemade customs. Monarch/Corona are a couple other names on some similar cards, which I believe were all done by the same person or persons. There is an ebay seller who sells them, LOTS & LOTS of them

I bit on a lot of the customs early on, but as they gone more prolific and better quality, I stopped buying every one I saw. For my custom money, I will pick up a couple well made pieces like Banty Red. That maker/seller is a member here, I know. Found another similar one that is Sporting Life, or something close to that.

The other difference is that some of the better sellers are clear in what they are selling/making, clearly marking their product as a modern card made to look old, or better yet, date them with a copyright so it is clear in the future that these are not vintage cards, but modern pieces of art. A lot of these others were likely meant with the hopes or tricky people into thinking they were something they are not.

Thanks Curt. I did an Ebay search and you're right, they are all over the place. Doesn't look like they were meant to deceive, but wonder if they received appropriate rights to the photos.

Thanks for chiming in.

Some of the 'Broders' are nicely done, some are POS. I have quite a few in my boxing collection because sometimes that's all you can get for a fighter.

I actually like a lot of that stuff.

The whole "oh they can always reprint it so it's trash" never seemed to actually happen, as the placed doing it sold what they made and moved on to the next hot topic or set design.
The only places caught reprinting were Star and Upper Deck, who got caught reprinting, and a couple years later faking their own non-sports stuff to sell to Treat.

Some of the designs on the unlicensed stuff were actually pretty good.

The Miller Press Cards are not handmade cards. They were limited printed runs designed by the printer and printed on a commercial printing press. Only a few hundred were made of each series mostly to be used as a promotional cards to be handed out at trade shows and to potential printing customers. They were never reprinted. When a series was done it was done never to be reprinted. Typically they were printed at the end of a customer job to minimize paper waste on the jobs. The press owner was a baseball card fan and decided to make cards that never existed. The cards are clearly marked monarch corona printing and are dated with the year so they can’t be confused as a vintage card. They made cards from 2004 - 2014. The seller on EBay acquired the remaining cards after printing business was sold by the original owner. The series are documented and I have a fairly extensive checklist. The cards are very well done and are more professionally done than the handmade sporting news cards or Banty red cards. I have some of those as well and they are nice but the sporting news cards are printed on a laser printer and any moisture will make them bleed. I recently learned the original Miller Press owner has bought the company back and may start producing some new series.

Something seems off here. Although the information is appreciated, how did you come to have this knowledge if you have just returned to cards after a good 25 years off from collecting?

Apparently you are an artist. Are you in any way affiliated with these Miller/Monarch cards either as a designer, printer or seller? if not, how do you know this seemingly insider information you shared?

https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...70#post2038470

I did not mean to diminish them, by calling them handmade. What I meant by that is that they seem to be printed by someone unknown other than the name Miller Press, but not licensed, authorized or widely available until they started showing up on ebay in masses what seems like a few years ago, through a single source. I have never held one in person, so I can't comment as to the actual quality of them, but there is a lot of haziness to them and other cards similar to them that have been passed off as something they were not, to eager collectors wanting new items of their favorite players and willing to bid against each other w/o knowing what they were buying. The lines between a legitimate licensed vintage issue that most people have never seen or heard of and "custom" cards that appear to be old but are not are blurring further by the day. I have been on ebay since 1998 and I can't say I ever ran across any before a few years ago.

I just found this card recently. Searching ebay for new Garvey items nearly daily for 20+ years and this card, shown as made in 2000, pops up for the first time ever as far as I have seen, 20 years after it was made. I'd say based on the description you have given about Miller Press, this cards falls into the same category. It was clearly made by a printing company, but I know no more than I can see from the card. I'd still consider this "handmade" and not produced by a company on large scale for the masses.

Nothing off here. I’ve just been collecting these since getting back into the hobby this year. I don’t have any affiliation with the printer and had never heard of them until I saw the cards on Ebay several months ago. Thanks for researching me though. Lol. I never claimed they were licensed or made for the masses. I believe I said there were only a few hundred made of each card in a series. They were never created for sale but as giveaway samples only. He also gave them to charity auctions to raffle. That’s why you never saw them for sale in the past. The printer never sold these himself. They only started coming up for sale after the owner sold the business several years ago and only then by a third party seller not the printer. That seller bought the remaining cards and has been selling them the last few years. The quality of the printing is far superior than the handmade sporting life cards. Many of the series are just as good as the big guys. A few photos may be slightly fuzzy. They are all clearly marked and dated so as to not be confused with being an older card. I contacted the eBay seller who sells them to gather research and also the owners of the press. The owner also has a blog sharing his own history of the cards and why he started making them. There is also a great deal of info on the Monarch Corona website about these cards as well. The printer name was Miller Press but later he started another printing company called Monarch Corona. I am just a fan of the cards who has done the legwork and research to make myself more knowledgeable about them. No hidden agendas here.

The printer never created these to fool people. The guy simply saw an opportunity to use the wasted paper on press to print some cool cards that had never been made and some players who didn't have a card or many cards. He loved the hobby and wanted to pass them out as samples of his printing work. I’ll post a link to his blog so you can read all about them. I would say they are custom but not handmade. As far as the term handmade that would apply to the Sporting Life cards on Ebay as they are actually made by hand. Two pieces of printed paper mounted to a substrate and cut out by hand. The art appears weathered and the corners rounded by hand. They are intended to look old. I've dissected one out of curiosity. These Monarch cards on the other hand were printed just like the mass printed cards on a large four or six color press and machine trimmed. Just printed in very small quantities. Most are 200 or so and 500 is the largest run of any of them. Not comparative to the hand made cards mentioned.

Some of the pages I found background info on.
http://monarch-corona.com/?p=22
https://portasite.com/index.php/2018...onarch-corona/

Like I said, I also messaged and talked to the dealer and the press owners. I just wanted to know more about them and get first hand information from the maker.